Super Metroid Beta Analysis

[CrAzY]

Hello everyone! I would like to present you with something I put together in a couple of weeks. It is a compilation of images & a text document that looks at all of the differences I have noticed between any earlier versions of SM that are available to view compared to the final (There is also a section at the end detailing things I have noticed in the retail release using SMILE, that I am sure will be quickly corrected.)

I hope that anyone can provide more insight into pre-release elements of Super Metroid, either through the games coding, or "new" pictures/videos.
I also hope to be corrected in any of the things I have stated in this document, so that it can be updated. The formatting is not ideal, as I threw it together in Notepad++ in 1280x1024, but hopefully you can persevere.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7l28q684yq5zp1n/SM%20Beta%20Info.rar?dl=1

Always being a big fan of SMILE, I decided to throw together my own hack that attempts to recreate a combination of Beta elements the best that I can. (All WIP)

( Edit: The hack is now released, here - https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,5311 )
[spoiler]
Fake Kraid Hallway with GFX changes (I know, both tiles need work)
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
Tall Bubble Room before Speed Booster
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
Norfair Shaft before Wave Beam
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
Crocomire Entrance
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
Misc
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
Early Map Screen
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Thanks for this wonderful site. It has every resource a Super Metroid lover could ever want.

If you would like the document by itself, here is a link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o48u3eegotu99w7/SM%20Beta%20Info.rtf?dl=1

or open this spoiler tag. . .
[spoiler]
===============================
ver. 1.0d
Updated Arrangement/
Clean-up/
Updated Info/
===============================
ver. 1.0c
Updated Arrangement/
Clean-up/
New Pictures/ *Pointed out by "snibsnib" of Metroid Construction + Me Searching "Extensively"* /
New General Info/New Crateria Info/New Brinstar Info/New Maridia Info/"
===============================
ver. 1.0b
Updated Arrangement/
Clean-up/
New Pictures/ *Images contributed by "Vismund Cygnus" of Metroid Construction + Me Searching "Extensively"* /
New General Info/New Brinstar Info/New Maridia Info/New Norfair Info/New Retail Info/
===============================
ver. 1.0  -  7/1/2014
Initial Release/
===============================

These differences come from viewing what little pre-release info we have available to us, such as screen shots from various magazines (Nintendo Power, etc.)
& short video clips from a Nintendo Service Center Update from February 1994 showing a "1993 ver. 0.1A" of Super Metroid as well as a Winter CES clip from January 1994.
All info comes from builds in various states of completion.
= While I labelled most of these notes as assumptions, pretty much everything I stated could be, despite some of the more obvious visible differences. =
= And I don't claim anything as new information, as most of this stuff was discovered in the game's coding (such as the Long Beam). =
= I would also like to thank sites dedicated to Super Metroid, such as Metroid Construction, Metroid2002, Metroid Database, & others, as well as all of the hardcore fans
& new comers that contributed to them. =

======== WEBSITE LINKS ========

Most pictures containing differences were easily available to view at the MDB, listed here
* http://www.metroid-database.com/sm/library.php

They never seemed to have gotten around to including the pictures I uploaded to a Metroid2002 thread back in 2007 ( Member "Kyousha" generously scanned them
for much better quality. I only had a really basic phone camera then, & was quite naive about some of the claims I made).
* https://m2k2.taigaforum.com/post/super_metroid_proto_my_analysis.html
(even though better quality ones had seemingly been around since 2000, even though I never stumbled upon them until later)
* http://galaxar.sakabatou.net/Smetbeta.html

Then the three Nintendo of Japan sites that seem to use pre-release images of Super Metroid, even though they were all seemingly uploaded after the release of the game.
* http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n02/shvc/ri/index.html
* http://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0303/1/
* http://metroid.jp/metroid_version2/history/
( They all seem to use the same statue room picture, so they must have just kept pulling it from some collection they have. Wish I could have a peek. )

======== VIDEO LINKS ========

The earliest version of Super Metroid that we have available to view is a very short clip that seems to have just been discovered/uploaded to Youtube recently, &
provides some exciting insight to big fans of the game. It shows us the following. . .
- Early Title Screen with a 1993 copyright & "ver 0.1a" right under it ( 1993 copyright is still inside the retail Rom. ver 2.0 is in their too )
- Ceres Station exploding & Samus flying away (the ship sprite is completely horizontal with no spin)
- Fighting the Bomb Torizo with a slight difference in tile arrangement
- A small glimpse of an early green Kraid Hallway with graphical & game play differences
- & Last, but certainly not least, a glimpse of an early layout to the map of Brinstar ( & some Pause Screen differences )
(Not to mention some strange SFX at times)

* http://youtu.be/siTeGPMIwpw?t=9m35s
( Auto-Skips to 9:35 )

+ It was pointed out to me that there is more footage of Super Metroid ver 0.1a in the video above.
( Skip to 15:25 ) to see the extra footage. It shows us the following. . .
- An underwater Maridian room that contains a Metroid, as well as different level design, palette, BG
- The battle with Spore Spawn showing that a Ripper enemy was originally in the room, as well as being in an unknown area according to the Mini-Map

We also have a short video from the Winter "Consumer Electronics Show" (CES) of January 1994 (2 months prior to the retail release) that shows off a slight difference
in enemy & tile placement.

* http://youtu.be/I0EMVLbzlCQ?t=3m50s
  ( Auto-Skips to 3:50 )
 
  ======== MISCELLANEOUS ========

Also included is a Hand Drawn Map of Super Metroid from the Developers themselves, provided to us by Metroid Database.
It is the image titled [ SMdevmap ] with this document.

When inspecting this, I found many oddities & remnants of early design ideas that either never existed in game, or were never updated in the drawing. Some of these
findings match up with beta images, so that prompted me to take a harder look at this accurate drawing & highlight any areas of interest.
That is the image titled [ SMdevmap2 ] with this document.
* Most of my highlights are total assumptions & most of the markings related to platforms (Such as there being more than in the actual game) could have been due
to not guessing how high Samus could jump on paper / Or it could just be smudges or tiny enemy markings, who knows? *

Sites that focus on beta analysis seem to be missing a good chunk of photos with semi-interesting differences, stuff that I had not spotted until just
recently, too, by just truly examining each picture. (Super Metroid is my favorite game of all time, & now that I am older & semi-experienced with game development,
I hope that most of this info proves to be accurate or at least, thought provoking to fans. Plus, I love early builds of video games, so I had to do SM some justice).

======== CONTACT ========

If you wish to CONTACT me about any new videos, pictures, info, insight, or well-reasoned assumptions about anything related to early versions of Super Metroid
so that I can update this document,
CONTACT ME AT

* crazyiness@gmail-dot-com
( Title should have Super Metroid in it )

Or you can just reply to my thread at Metroid Construction,
* http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3158.0.html

* If you are reading this document without having the complete collection of pictures that go along with it, use this link to download them.
* https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyveswd6h4mk31p/SM%20Beta%20Info.rar
======== KEY ========

(At the end of most of my observations will be something in brackets [ ] . This corresponds with the pictures in the folder provided with this document)
example -
[ 16 ] is image 16.
[ SMdevmap ] is the image with that name.
[ V ] refers to the Nintendo Service Center Update Video (Linked Above.)
[ V CES ] refers to the Winter Consumer Electronics Show Video (Linked Above.)

==================================================================

[=== GENERAL ===]

- The Long Beam powerup used to be in the game, was positioned at the top of the beam list (Also appears that the charge beam was not in the game yet). [ 17 ]
- Morph Ball powerup used to be named "Maru Mari." [ 14 , 17 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The Power Bomb has a different sounding high pitched effect in the Nintendo Service Center video. [ V ]
- Choosing the Auto setting for your Reserve Tanks would show the same icon on your in-game HUD, except it took off the bottom arrow. [ 21 , 21b ]
(probably changed, because, why not? It makes way more sense to fill the gap).
- The game appears to have originally had 5 Reserve Tanks. There is coding left in the game that hints at this, as well as one inventory image showing it off. [ 17 ]
(ASSUMPTION) The cut Reserve Tank appears to have been from Brinstar, somewhere down near the Morph Ball. Why do I say this? If you'll notice, a couple of images
show Samus as having a Reserve Tank as early as going up the elevator after Morph Ball. I would've guessed that these are just testing values, but it appears that Samus
obtained these items legitimately, as she only has the expected items up that point (Besides the strange Reserve Tank). I assume that when this Reserve Tank was removed
they just added another Missile pickup in it's place (If you'll notice, the game has 46 Missile Pickups, 10 Super Missile Pickups, & 10 Power Bomb Pickups.
46 seems to be a strange final number, not that that is proof of anything, but 45 would seem much cleaner, in my opinion). [ 22 ]
Upon even further examination after reading about JAM's post on Metroid Construction that talked about 5 Reserve Tanks, one of the older images that I thought had no
differences seems to have had one all along. The existence of the Small Energy pickup from killing the first Space Pirate seen in-game (clinging above the door in old
Mother Brain's room) is there, even though Samus already has 99 Health. It appears that the Reserve Tank was definitely down near Morph Ball.
(I just never noticed, but it must be because the image is cropped just enough that it would show us the final sprite for Reserve, but not the earlier version).
[ extra2 ]
(Or it could be that enemies dropped health pickups even if you had full health).
- (ASSUMPTION) The First Missile pickup seemed to be the one in the room to the right of Morph Ball (Where the Second Missile pickup is) (Makes Sense Too, as these Missiles
also require the use of Morph Ball to obtain) (Not in a Chozo's hands, though, which would seem way more appropriate for the first pickup). [ 15 ]
- Mini/Fake Kraid was originally invulnerable to plain Wave Beam, and I would assume plain lemon shots as well (Probably changed due to being a game ender with no
Charge Beam/Missiles) (Unless they had an infinite enemy spawner in the room originally). [ V ]
- Mini/Fake Kraid death animation used to be a single explosion (like most enemies), maybe indicating that the multiple explosion death effect was not created yet. [ V ]
- No Screen Shake from Super Missiles impacting enemies (Maybe no Screen Shake at all) [ V ]
-  (ASSUMPTION) Space Pirate's "Eye" Laser Projectiles seemed to have changed from a Red Laser to its current squiggly yellowish beam (Could be bad image quality). [ 19 ]
-  (ASSUMPTION) Key-Hunter's Wings Appeared To Be Yellow/Orange in earlier builds, as opposed to Retail's Pink (Could be bad image quality). [ 8 , extra4 ]
- HUD underwent minor changes. Font was changed from an italic look, Energy had three different variants (Right facing arrow in front of the Energy text in one build,
underlined Energy text that leads to a forward slash in another, & one that is just the Energy text with the forward slash in front of it),
& triple digits for all powerups/health (TESTING?) [ 2 , 35 , extra10  ]
- HUD appears with a mysterious configuration in one shot. Energy is located on the top right, and the map is to the left of it (Near Centered)
(Would the HUD rearrange after obtaining Missiles? Or was this just an earlier HUD design?) [ 7 , extra1 ]
- Testing values usually appear to be 900 Missiles, 90 Super Missiles, 90 Power Bombs, 6 E-Tanks, & all powerups (up to that point).
- The Pause Menu originally displayed both "MAP" and "SAMUS" text at all times, not removing the text of whatever screen you're currently viewing. [ 4 , V ]
(The "P" in "MAP" and the "S" in "SAMUS" were slightly touched up for retail).
- The Map Screen originally had a smooth scroll as opposed to the retails "Jumpy" (tile by tile) version. [ V ]
- The Map Screen originally labelled elevators as leading to "SURFACE" as opposed to having the area's names. [ 4 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The Map Screen originally labelled where certain things were with letters, such as Recharge Stations and Bosses. [ 4 ]
* "B" used for Mini/Bosses
* "M" used for Map Station or Missile Recharge
* "E" used for Energy Recharge (Energy Tank?)
* "J" used for ???
- If this is the case, it looks like Map Stations weren't an idea yet, maybe having the map from the start).
- The Early Build appears to have no Save Stations (or their respective rooms) at all (Unless they just weren't revealed on the map, which seems highly unlikely) [ 4 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) Password system, auto-save near elevators (The "J" icon above? Jump To?), or saves just weren't implemented yet, but were still planned to be included at
the end of mapping (Either because it was of no need during testing, or they wanted to have testers play the game & see where Save points would be most useful).
(Just read a post on Metroid2002 from "JAM" who states almost the exact same thing. That there was auto-saves near Elevators and before Bosses, which perfectly matches
the "J" Icons on the map). Perhaps you could choose which location to "Jump To" through the Hexagonal Map that pops up when loading a file? (as the Debug code lets you?)
= Using a Pro Action Replay code to access the Debug functions for SM, you are able to access some interesting features. One is a function that lets you spawn at
predefined spots in each area of the map. A couple of these spots are in key locations, which happen to be on or near most of the main elevators (Brinstar happening to
be one of them, matching the J icon exactly in image [ 4 ]. & The other spot in Brinstar happens to be at the top right of the Charge Beam room, right near the entrance
to Spore Spawns hallway. Yet, it is also a space below the J icon in the early build of SM.
Was it put their for Developers? Or was this really the original main save feature of the game? A few of the spawns for Samus seem out of place, as if to indicate
placement from an early build, or barely moved. They all basically work still, so maybe it wasn't a problem. ( I rebuilt the old Crocomire shaft for my hack, & the
spawn point for it still doesn't fit correctly...)


[=== MAP/LEVEL ===]

=- CRATERIA -=

- Bomb Torizo room has minor differences in tile placement on the right-hand wall. Same Layout. [ 2 ]
- Statue room has minor differences in tile placement/GFX. (& a perma-stuck in one variation?) [ 20 , 21 , 21b ]
- The Statue apparently didn't turn gray after defeating its respective enemy (You can see that the colored "jewels" in the eyes of Kraid & Phantoon aren't there). [ 20 ]
- Landing Site room has minor differences in tile placement on the ground near the ship. [ 7 , 13 ]
- Top Of Elevator room (before Morph Ball) has very minor tile differences. Same Layout
(New tile with a red diamond in the middle of a silver square was included in retail) [ 27 ]
- Using the Map Station would originally reveal the Statue room, it's hallway, as well as the elevator to Tourian. [ 16 ]
- Landing the ship on Zebes after Ceres originally caused the map to become explored (pink) directly in the center of landing sites map, despite the ship being marked
in it's default location. Maybe the intro landing was offset from earlier placement? Or it literally did have a more centered spot, despite the map icon. [ 16 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The map in one of the Statue room's screen-shots seems to suggest that the Missile room and the hall right above it either didn't exist, or didn't appear
even with the Map Station. (The Map appears revealed due to how we can make out a blue elevator map tile in the Mini-Map) [ 21 , 21b ]
- The Winter CES video (Linked Above) shows us that the main Crateria shaft (That connects to the map room, save station, bomb torizo) had slightly different enemy
placement. There used to be a Ripper (flying enemy) at the bottom of the shaft. [ extra13 , V CES ]
(Maybe it was moved/removed after viewing CES footage of unexperienced players getting hit by this enemy while trying to jump off the platform?)
- The Winter CES video also shows the player entering the hallway that leads to a Missile pickup. We can see that the tile arrangement was touched up to add more variation
& have a sense of the rooms connecting (Look near the door. CRE tiles were added to this area in retail). [ extra14 , V CES ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The Winter CES video seems to have different grass sprites as well. They appear more curved rather than retails straight up look. [ extra13 , V CES ]

=- BRINSTAR -=

- The Map room in the initial elevator shaft used to be an Energy Tank pickup, or an Energy Recharge Station. [ 4 ]
- The Map Station originally revealed Shinespark Buddies room, Wall Jump Buddies room (as well as the hall leading up to it, save station and Super Missile room above) &
The hidden Power Bomb room connected to the Charge Beam's room. [ 18 ]
- The Mockball Super Missile Sequence Break room either had different Missile placement, or was incorrectly mapped out. (Also lacking dot for Reserve Tank) [ 18 ]
- Missile Recharge/Fire Flea room at the bottom left of the elevator shaft was once a giant room with a vertical shaft leading to two other rooms that appears to lead
to the Energy Tank room that requires Speed Booster that lies beyond the Charge Beam. (Although it could lead anywhere after that, the map screen never scrolls down =[ )
(ASSUMPTION) (I'd like to think this area was the original location for the Statue room & the Foggy Hallway before it, & Tourian (Matches with JAM's theory, as these
rooms are in the middle of Brinstar's rooms data). Maybe even leading to the Energy Recharge Station at the bottom of the Red Brinstar Shaft! =] ) [ 4 ]
- The room with a Powebomb pickup in it to the left of the Grapple Blocks/Missile that leads to the hidden door behind a wall in retail (WOW) appears to have had
a sloped ceiling (according to the Developer Map), & also the Map Station for Brinstar or a Missile pickup at the top near the initial entrance. [ SMdevmap , 4 ]
- An Extra Screen (Scroll Area) is in the area directly past the Charge Beams Power Bomb block. [ 5 ]
(It also looks to be a late decision, according to the Super Metroid Developer's Map, maybe. . . looks smudged). [ SMdevmap ]
- A Screen (Scroll Area) was removed in the aforementioned Energy Tank room (past Charge Beam), it was originally one space back. [ 4 ]

- Spore Spawn's Hallway seemed to either have not existed yet or was moved (maybe to right after Spore Spawn battle?) [ 4 ]
(Not to mention that old beta pictures of Spore Spawn's Hallway are incorrectly mapped out, hinting that it was added later/moved). [ 8 ]
- Spore Spawn's Upward Entrance Door was instead placed in the same Scroll Area that now contains the door to Spore Spawn's Hallway. [ 4 ]
- The room after Spore Spawn appears to be a single hallway that leads to another room (assuming that one room is hidden on the map & the Super Missile placement
isn't radically different), which then leads to the long falling shaft to the First Super Missiles room. [ 4 ]
- The long falling shaft room with Super Missiles has another room connecting to it at the very top right. This room heads above the elevator. (Maybe connecting
with Crateria somehow?) [ 4 ]
(ASSUMPTION) The long falling room may have been a climbing room instead, having the exit from the first Super Missile's being an entrance instead, with Super Missiles
in the usual spot or the room right after Spore Spawn (if it really is a dead end up there). (If it was a climbing room, maybe this was the original escape from Tourian?)
- (ASSUMPTION) First Super Missile room also appears to be a single room starting from entering the long falling shaft all the way to the Charge Beam room
(according to the map). [ 4 ]
- First Super Missile pickup room was one Screen shorter (Going Right). [ 4 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) A logical reason for moving Spore Spawn's room seemed to have existed. It looks like when they moved Tourian (if they did), then the Map would literally
conflict with the position of Spore Spawn, according to the incredibly accurate hand drawn Super Metroid Developer's Map. [ SMdevmap ]
(Although they could have just moved all of the map sections down even more to accommodate for Spore Spawn's old location)
- The battle with Spore Spawn used to have a Ripper (flying enemy) in the room at the perfect height level to hit Samus while she is a Morph Ball in either of the two
corners of the room (on top of the ledges). The Ripper sprite appears unpolished (could be bad image quality). [ 35 ]
- Killing Spore Spawn used to remove the graphic for his "core" (weak spot). [ 33 , 34 , 35 , V CES ]
- Spore Spawn's location seems to have been moved multiple times, seen here with an unfamiliar Mini-Map that doesn't match retail or the early Brinstar map. [ 34 ]
(If you'll notice, while this image & others appear in the Nintendo Service Center above, it appears to be clips from builds in various states of completion. Compare image
[ 34 ] with image [ 3 ]. The HUD/Map seems to have changed. The digits for Energy went from italic to the retail font, the digits for Super Missiles & Power Bombs
changed from 3 to 2, & the Energy text changed from Energy with an arrow in front of it to Energy with a forward slash in front of it).

- Green Staircase W/ Blue Gate room (right after Charge Beam room) originally had a sloped design instead of stairs (according to the map). [ 4 ]
- X-Ray Hallway room originally didn't have the first drop off (was a straight hallway until reaching near the X-ray door, then there was the drop off). [ 18 ]
- The room at the bottom right of the Red Brinstar shaft originally had a different design, with spikes covering the floor & platforms to hop across (some that
just barely submerge Samus' Boots, resulting in slow water movement. [ 23 ]
(After examining this picture & looking back at the Super Metroid Developer's Map, it appears to have the old design for this room). [ SMdevmap ]

- (BIG ASSUMPTION) The Entrance to Kraid's Hideout (Right after the Super Missile Blocks) appears to have been a straight walkway into the mouth of the statue/monster
made out of tiles, with no drop down. Seems they wanted to persuade you to get Hi-Jump Boots earlier. [ SMdevmap(?) , 17 , 18 ]
(It could be that whoever played the game & took this picture jumped over the gap, as a regular tester of SM would be able to accomplish this easily, but I just don't know).
- Kraid's Initial Hallway has pretty big differences in tile placement/GFX. [ 3 , V ]
* The Spikes were originally more curved
* The Green tiles had a strange white top to them
* The Purple Eyeball tiles were much more simple and had no visible pupil
* The "Kraid" Face made out of tiles was originally placed near the door at the end of the hall
* The Background is green instead of red, with minor graphical differences. (Wrong Palette?)

- (The movement of the "Kraid Face" looks to be a late design choice, according to the Super Metroid Developer's Map (Although it could've been repositioned
earlier & just never redrawn). [ SMdevmap ]

=- Wrecked Ship -=

- The Wrecked Ship area is not shown off to much in pre-release material (unfortunately). One of the early images shows off the fight with Phantoon. The only
thing that differentiates it besides the Energy display & the early Reserve Icon is that it has different BG graphics, but only slightly. Do you see the yellow circular
lights near the floor & ceiling tiles? In the retail game these same lights appear on the middle BG tiles as well. Not to mention all of the other lights/details.
All of it was probably added as they were polishing it for release. [ 12 ]
- The BG in the room right before Phantoon is slightly lower in the earlier build. In retail, you can see two air ducts in the BG near the floor and the ceiling. The beta
is just low enough to show one of them. [ extra8 ]

=- MARIDIA -=

- The Main Maridian room above the Glass Tube entrance seems to have had it's enemies rearranged. [ 25 ]
- The room before the Turtle Buddies room used the red Space Pirates that jump from wall to wall in the top right corner as opposed to the standing variant. (Maybe both?)
(Although I would say the left side works perfectly for a wall climbing variant, even if the room's design is mainly to hinder no Gravity Suit). [ 26 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The room before Turtle Buddies room appears to have had a different design, palette, BG, as well as different enemies (a Metroid). This is labelled as an
assumption only because I am not quite sure if this is an earlier version of that room, or somewhere else entirely. [ 28 - 32 , V CES ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The Turtle Buddies room appears to have had two platforms/grapple tiles leading up to the Energy Tank above. [ SMdevmap ]
(It could be previous markings from them partitioning off areas into squares to emulate their screen-scroll layout, but they seem darkened)

=- NORFAIR -=

- (ASSUMPTION) The Tall Bubble room 2 room's before Speed Booster appeared to have had 7 Grapple Tiles at the top, as well as either having more rows of
top tiles or a higher camera scroll (retail only shows the grapple blocks at the top row, while the beta shot shows two rows of tiles above it). [ 9 , extra5 ]
- Vertical Shaft room to the right of the Tall Bubble room (before Wave Beam) originally had Space Pirates in it, minor differences in tile placement. [ 19 ]
(Also doesn't seem to have the bomb blocks that are near the Ridley/Lower Norfair exit). [ SMdevmap ]
- Crocomire's Entrance room was heavily changed, having a redesigned bottom shaft, as well as an unfamiliar map above it. [ 10 , extra6 ]
- (ASSUMPTION) The Long Grapple Above Lava with Spikes & the "HAND" Samus grabber enemies (E7BF) room seemed to have not included these enemies yet, unless it was
killed by a Super Missile, but this is doubtable, as this looks to be the auto-demo that plays after the title screen, showing Samus swinging across this room. No Spikes
yet either (although I guess the lava might not have been transparent yet?) (Map appears unfinished) ( Seems to be the auto-demo playing for some CES screen-shot). [ 24 ]
- One of the map layouts for Norfair from a Nintendo Power show that the Energy Recharge Station that is right after the Screw Attack pickup was one square down, putting
it right behind where the Chozo Statue is in the retail release. Either that, or the room originally contained the Screw Attack itself. [ extra15 ]
- The room to the left of Lower Norfair's Elevator (with the lowering lava/acid after entering the Chozo's hand) appears to have been completely different. [ SMdevmap ]

[=== MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ===]

=- RETAIL GAME -=
(Requires the use of "SMILE" & a Super Metroid Rom if you want to compare notes with room locations)

- The Retail Game's Unused one-screen room in Lower Norfair (7B3E1) that uses the Lower Norfair tileset is completely identical to the top of Crocomire's shaft. [ extra9 ]
(ASSUMPTION) room data was copied to make a new room easier, but nothing went anywhere with it, or when Crocomire's Shaft underwent construction, a new room
was made instead of just editing the existing room (Unlikely) (This room has been speculated as being the possible beginning entrance to the big rising acid
room in Lower Norfair, & I agree that it would flow very well, but I think we are lacking too many details to hazard such a guess).
- The "Reflect" Enemy (DBFF) is loaded into the enemy allowed list in room 7B585 (Lower Norfair Vertical Chasm before Ridley) & 7A4B1 (Energy Tank after Kraid).
- The "Bang" Enemy ( DB3F ) appears to be the only unused enemy that is never loaded into any room, making it truly unused. (Not counting enemies like F153 which were only
"recently" found). Or (DAFF) which seems to be some kind of Metroid wit no AI.
- Maridian Rooms 7D340, 7D1DD, 7D0B9, either contain unused BTS tiles, Door tiles, as well as some horizontal bomb/crumble blocks off-screen.
- Maridian room 7D913 & 7D72A have treadmill tiles at the top of the screen. Perhaps it was a transition from a room above at one point? Or you were originally able to
get that high up the shaft before being pushed downwards, or just off-screen placing of tiles/BTS while editing that could've been handy, but unused?
- Maridian room 7D1DD appears to have had a door at its top right corner, leading to 7D340. Both rooms have a single door tile in the middle of screen scrolls
(indicating previous placement of doors due to the single tile's offset, or a Morph Ball tunnel) & 7D1DD still transfers you to 7D340, lending credibility to this theory.
7D340's door doesn't lead back to 7D1DD, however. (Not sure what this means... shifting of Maridian rooms?) (Although it does lead to a room connected to 7D340, so maybe
it was quickly covered over with a random door tile? As the door transition it connects to is the right facing one at the bottom of the room, & since the single door tile
left over is a left facing one, it screws up Samus X/Y position upon entry)
Maybe the strange vertical shaft that appears once in the whole game was a last minute addition? Or maybe both that and the door/ Morph Ball tunnel were there.
This shortcut would skip Botwoon if the door in room 7D5EC didn't have a grey event driven door. Although this door would probably still be gray since you can
enter Maridia from the Wrecked Ship.
(MASSIVE ASSUMPTION) Maridia was the last area to be finalized, considering it seems the most sloppy with lingering BTS tiles.
(Not to mention that enemy (D77F) & (DA7F) appear on the enemy allowed list in quite a few rooms, though never used. (Were rooms copied from a base template?)
- Room 794FD has 4 x 7 rows of Screen Scrolls lingering above the explorable area. Perhaps it was planned to be a much larger room at some point? Seems like a waste
of space(Also, a Debug function to spawn at predefined locations happens to have a spawn point in this exact room).
- Room 793FE has two rooms fully mapped out that can only be accessed using their respective doors. However, if you try to enter either of the unreachable left/right doors,
they are obvious copies of doors that already existed in that room. Any right facing door will be the entrance to the Wrecked Ship, and the left facing doors lead to the
Missile on a pillar room (CWJ room before the area in front of the Wrecked Ship).
- Map Station rooms jump from having two "half tile slopes" around the spot where Samus inserts her shiny arm cannon, to two full tile blocks instead.
(Extremely obvious in Crateria's Map room, where you can make Samus stand on nothing).
- Room 7AC2B has a red Screen Scroll below the Grapple Beam pickup, yet seems to serve no purpose (This is also visible in the Super Metroid Developer Map).
- Room 7D95E (Botwoon's room) has the Spiky Enemy that pops out of the ground (D03F) in it's allowed list. Maybe Botwoon's battle originally involved constant movement?
(MASSIVE ASSUMPTION)
- Room 7B6EE is interesting in the creature it depicts using the game's tiles. First of all, we have the Unused map mentioned above that appears to be the very top of
the shaft leading Crocomire's Entrance. Yet it uses the Lower Norfair tileset. The creature made of tiles in 7B6EE looks similar to Crocomire, & not only that, to access
the area containing the Energy Tank, you have to fire a Super Missile (Or lay a Power Bomb) right into the Mouth of this "creature". Could this have been an early
entrance to Crocomire containing a hint on how to defeat the enemy before hand (& How it would attack, firing from its mouth? Also, the claw below matches his)
Maybe it was decided that having Croc before Ridley would be rather pointless? Or maybe room 7AD5E originally had a way to access the Door to enter Lower Norfair that let
you reach Crocomire, but not Ridley?
OR the most likely, it is just another vicious looking creature made out of tiles, kinda like Kraid's Hideout Entrance, so stop thinking so much about it.
(MASSIVE ASSUMPTION)
- Room 79A90 & 79A44 interest me for a few reasons. First being that a beta shot shown off on Nintendo's Zero Mission Time-line (?) appears to not have had these two rooms
(based on the screen-shot's Mini-Map, which shows a blue tile for Tourian's elevator (which was shown to be displayed after accessing the Map Station in-game) (based off
another screen-shot of the "same" build). So it was either hidden from the Map Station Download, was added but the map was never updated, or that it didn't exist at all.
Why does this matter? It probably doesn't, but then we have the fact that the enemies allowed list contains "CEFF" (KOMA, aka, Mini-Crocomire), which is completely unused
in this game, save for the fact of appearing on the enemy allowed list only one time in this very room. It doesn't seem to fit with where Mini-Crocomire would most likely
appear, & I would posit that room 79A44/79A90 were created late in the design process, & possibly used as a small testing ground for enemies? The last semi-interesting
thing is the fact that room 79A90 has two room states, one for after obtaining bombs (which are required to even gain access to this room), & the room's state prior to
obtaining bombs has one of the "Eye Camera" "enemies" lodged inside of the Chozo Statue that holds a Missile pickup. & It acts the same as the other two, shining a yellow
X-ray sized beam at Samus, probably asking her, "WTF are you doing here without bombs? Respect the Chozo's idea of progression!" I like this because it is the only room
I know of that does this, & it has to be in one of the rooms that intrigues me. Not to mention that accessing this room before bombs is practically impossible through
standard play, making it even more of an oddity. I still think this would be another good spot for the removed Long Beam item.



[/spoiler]

[Vismund Cygnus]

If your browser supports the text and whatnot, this page might be of some use to you. Also seems to have a couple of pictures that you don't have in your collection.
Interesting collection of stuff, I'll be sure to have a better read through of this in the future.

[CrAzY]

Wow! I am not going to lie, I have never seen those images before! Well, the top one appears to be one of the cropped/half covered images I have of the Statue room, but it is awesome to see all of it! & that second image showing an earlier design of the room at the bottom right of the red Brinstar shaft... Awesome!

Always liked your level design, by the way. Thanks for the fast reply.

[begrimed]

Wow, I didn't know there was even this much info about the beta version out there. Thanks for posting this up. Would be cool if a beta ROM surfaced, or the original software they used to edit the game, haha.

[Zero One]

TCRF always proves to be a good source of beta content too.

[CrAzY]

I have to disagree with that. I love tcrf & have viewed too many articles on it, but you must note some things about their article on Super Metroid. It doesn't focus at all on beta material besides what's in the retail ROM. Second of all, some of the things it states are wrong. It says that the "Reflect" enemy is loaded into only one room, while it appears to be two (Lower Norfair vertical chasm before Ridley & the Energy Tank room after Kraid.) I am sure a fair number of people have noticed a ton of oddities through hacking apart SM already, but not truly documented it all as maybe they weren't as interested in unused stuff/old screenshots, & speculating.

Working at updating the document all around, & including the pictures showed to us by Vismund.

[FPzero]

Funny enough, I was the guy that put together the first draft of the Super Metroid page there.  I'll agree though, my findings were not related to beta content at all since that hadn't been my focus.  Additionally, I didn't know how to scour the rom for unused data outside of what was accessible through SMILE so the page was mostly just documenting what was already known about the rom to at least start the page for the game.  I documented the Debug room, unused sprites, unused palettes and the unused norfair room.

I'd love to see you add your beta findings to the page once you've compiled them further and feel free to make further corrections.

[CrAzY]

Don't get me wrong, I love what was posted on that site. The main thing that I didn't document for the retail section of my findings were unused sprites, palettes, the debug room because that page & others have done a great job of it already, but I am more focused on level design differences. The tcrf page did show me things I hadn't seen (such as the "game crashing" screen that shows a hud with the debug font, & one of the older variations of the energy symbol. That was the first time I saw it in good quality.)  I should include that too.
People say that the blackened red criteria tileset was used for the darkening of a fire flea room (such as the hallway before X-ray), but I also think it would be good enough for the Planet Zebes blowing up sequence, & that maybe the escape from Tourian had multiple routes if it indeed was originally located near Brinstar.
The problem with my "findings" is that they are total guesses. They are based off video/picture differences, but still complete guesses.

One thing tcrf doesn't have is sprites of that strange "pacman" growth that loads with Mother Brain. Some YouTube video originally showed it to me, I should try & find that too.

[Lunaria]

I'm pretty sure I added some stuff to that page too fifo. :V

[JAM]

Awesome! This left appendix on the Brinstar map should lead to statues room prorably. Or the firefly room of red Brinstar.

I stared to write my own article, so this topic is a best place to add my stuff.



I've found something interesting. Again. But now it's just indirect evidences. Looks like, there was one more item, partly programmed, but lately removed from the game. The code in pose transition $37 and $38. In SMILE it's marked like "Mid-Air morph (unused)", but actually, it's more like a normal morphball, while $35 and $36 were used to mid-air morphing. In the game, the whole code of pose transition $37 and $38 is never executed.

Evidences:
1. The code itself.
Look at the code at 8F804:

Code Select Expand


LDA $09A2
BIT #$0000
BNE $32
BIT #$0002

BIT #$0000. What the hell? BRA $32 will never happen. There definitely was something (but not zero value) lately zeroed. Same code appears 3 more times.
As for the meaning of code, it's like "if you have ?????? item, go branch and do ??????? (buggy in the final version). Else, morph into the ball". You may say that value $0002 is used by Spring Ball. Yes, but in beta it was used by Morphing Ball. Traces are in Morphing Ball item (Chozo ball form and hidden in scenery).

So, there was something planned be to take priority over Morphing Ball or Spring Ball. I think, it's Spider Ball. Think about it. If there was planned Spider Ball, then you shouldn't jump when pressing the Jump button. Instead of it you should held on the wall while pressing it.


2. Place for tilemap.
Look at Equipment disassembly doc by Kej.

BFF6 - C007 : Tilemap for oSPEED BOOSTER
C008 - C011 : Tilemap for oHYPER
C012 - C019 : Unused, I think (look like they belong with oHYPER, but only 5 tiles are used)

There are 8 usused bytes (4 tiles). Why? I guess, the was one more item with it's tilemap located at 14008..14019. 9 tiles exactly. Later, the item was removed and it's tilemap was replaced with Hyper Beam which was programmed later.


3. "Masked" tiles.
There are also traces of cleaning something in the pause screen GFX. Look at GFX at $1B0000. I'll help you.



As you see, unused tiles are drawn as striked tile numbers. Under "SAMUS" there are 5 unused tiles. Numbers are 4A, 4B, 4D, 4E, 4F and these tiles are 14A, 14B, 14D, 14E and 14F in pause screen GFX table.
Now, look to the left.
51, 51, [used], [used], ...
60, [used], [used], 51, 51, 51, ...

5 tiles of "51". Only one is at it's place. If I had to draw something but later remove it, I'd just copy unused tile over it. So, at least 4 tiles were used for something. Possibly, removed item.


4. GT code evidence.
As you may know, GT code gives you all items and beams except Screw Attack (I guess, because it's in the next room), but also gives you item with value 0010. There are not such item in the game anymore and it's not count in percentage when collected, but I guess, there was something.

So, I guess, there was an item doing something when pressing down in crouch form on the ground, NOT morphing into the ball. It's possibly can be the item allowing you to crawl, like in Zero Mission without Suit, but IMO, it was Spider Ball.

If there was another item, then the ammo and energy quantity was different to get 100%.

And... more evidences.


5. Place 5 Reserve Tanks in the hack. Collect them. Now press start to call the pause screen. See that? 5th rectange is at right place. And it's not because this is the position of "last closing" tile. Because "last closing" tile is have it's position too. I mean, to draw 5 rectangles, 6 tiles are needed. And there is 6 tiles have their position coded.

If move digits somewhere you'll see that.

All that I modified to get this pic is a Reserve Energy position.

And now, let's look at Equipment disassembly doc by Kej one more time.

Code Select Expand


LDA $C1D6, Y ; X position of each box
TAX
LDY $C1E2    ; Y position of boxes

Now, look at $141D6 ($82:C1D6)
{18 00} {20 00} {28 00} {30 00} {38 00} {40 00} {60 00}
Last one is Y position (at C1E2). In original game {40 00} is not used if you have collected 4 Reserve Tanks. It's reserved for 5th Reserve Tank because it's position is defined.

Max energy in total is 1999 (like 2k - 1), which is more logical than 1899 and the ammo quantity should be 220, 50, 50 then.


6. Long Beam evidence.
If read and understand Equipment disassembly doc by Kej, there are a traces of 6 beams in the menu. There is a code drawing 6 beam line tiles instead of 5 and a code of clearing 6 lines.

Locations: $121BC, $121B7
There are a CPX #$000C operator, but to draw 5 beams, there should be CPX #$000A instead. Change $0C to $0A and nothing will be changed. Change to $08 and Plasma will not be drawn anymore.


7. One more.
After all we have simply look at this picture again.



See the gap between SUPPLY and BEAM frames? That's where Long Beam supposed to be.


8. Different menu size trace.
And again, Equipment disassembly doc by Kej.
Look at $134C5 and at the comment left by Kej.

Code Select Expand


CPX #$000A   ;  BUG, should be C. Can't access Screw Attack without Spring Ball or Boots

In other places there are the CPX #$000C operator. So, there is a something they forgot to change. There is a code to hangle 5 items (instead of 6). Now, the SUIT and MISC frames are actually works like a one frame. Why there are 5 items instead of 6? I'll suppose that MISC frame have a separated code from SUIT frames and it had one more item. Spider Ball.





So, after all I can suppose that:
1. There was (or planned) a Spider Ball.
2. There was (or planned) a Long Beam.
3. There were 5 Reserve Tanks which would change the amount of ammo. If suppose that Spider Ball also should be there, then the rest ammo will be 220, 50, 50. That's what is needed to get 100%.


I'll write more if I'll find or remember something.



As for TCRF's Super Metroid article, it covers about 10% of unused stuff currently.

EDIT: As for the red Crateria, you have no idea how RED it could be.

Used a palette blend (don't remember it's number). And it was used on blue Crateria tileset.

[CrAzY]

Haha, I had a feeling that JAM's reply would be a good one, but damn, he came with guns blazing this time. Still working at updating the document, removing extreme assumptions & updating others as well as adding more. One interesting thing I have noticed just recently is that the Super Metroid Hand-drawn Developer map (included in the file above) actually has some tell tale signs of earlier design ideas (look at the Kraid hallway, the face made out of tiles is in the same spot as it is in the early build, & it looks like the image showed to us by Vismund with the early bottom right Red Brinstar room is present in the dev map). Currently scouring the dev map for anything that sticks out.

Like how you (JAM) assumes that the old area at the bottom left Brinstar shaft could have led to the statue room or the xray/fireflea room. I assume the same thing in my document. Maybe even leading to the energy recharge station at the bottom of the Red Brinstar shaft? So many possibilities.

Also, your Long Beam findings based off the coding are confirmed by one beta equipment screen included above. Could the GT code be trying to give you Long Beam?

[Lunaria]

IIRC, Jathys wrote his own custom beam that would slowly fall towards the ground before getting his version of long beam. (At least I think it was Jathys...) You should look into that, since that might be great for this hack. (Since beams going away into thin air is kind of meh.)

[JAM]

Haha, I had a feeling that JAM's reply would be a good one, but damn, he came with guns blazing this time.

Thank you also for all job you did. =) I never saw so much pictures from that archive. I tried to get more info about Super Metroid about 10 years ago and all I found is famous 6 pictures from Nintendo Power magazine.

Like how you (JAM) assumes that the old area at the bottom left Brinstar shaft could have led to the statue room or the xray/fireflea room. I assume the same thing in my document. Maybe even leading to the energy recharge station at the bottom of the Red Brinstar shaft? So many possibilities.

Well, I think I was wrong about the butterfly room.
I have 2 answers for now. Both says that the enter was somewhere in Brinstar.


Number 1.
Look at the game manual. I'll upload it.

We all clearly see where the enter is. From the shaft of brown Brinstar (part where are spores on the BG). And that left appendix is prorably exit, not enter.

Also, manual says that the new Tourian is located deeper than the old one.

Tourian is the control center for the Zebesian space pirates and the Mother Brain. The original Tourian was located just below the surface. After Samus Aran annihilated the forces of Zebes the first time, this new Tourian was build in a more secure area.

But in the final version, if we place both Tourian on the same map, we'll get this.




Blue: new Tourian
Red: now it's a part of Crateria (escape shaft room).
Green: old Tourian.

New Tourian isn't deeper, that's for sure.


Number 2.
Look at final version of game.

I've got at least 4 proofs based on the statue room and the room before it.

1. Tileset used for it. No comments.

2. These 2 rooms are located in the Brinstar cluster of the rooms. 7A5ED and 7A66A. Rooms in the whole ROM are splited into clusters. I mean, there is Crateria cluster (from 791F8 to 799xx), Brinstar cluster etc. Only these 2 room are placed in the "wrong" cluster.

3. These 2 rooms are having the wrong Room Indexes. Crateria rooms are having indexes from $00 to $1F. Brinstar rooms -- from $00 to $37. These 2 rooms have indexes $30 and $33. And rooms with such indexed are missing in the Brinstar.

4. Specially for these 2 rooms, the "flash orange" effect of FX1 was added to Crateria FX1's glow list. It does exactly what does the same effect in the Brinstar.

5. Try to join maps of all areas together drawing only existing sectors. You will not be able to do it. Tourian's position will not let you to join the maps together. That's why there are very long elevators on every map of Super Metroid. Relocate Tourian under left part of Brinstar, and you'll join the maps without problems.

So, the second version, the enter to Tourian was from red Brinstar (basing on tileset).

Prorably, it was reallocated twice! It may be originally planned as the manual says. Then it was relocated to the red Brinstar. Then it was relocated to where it is now.

Also, your Long Beam findings based off the coding are confirmed by one beta equipment screen included above. Could the GT code be trying to give you Long Beam?

Nope, it's not trying to give you the Long Beam. It gives you the $100F combination. 1000 bit is for Charge Beam, 4 bits from 0 to 8 -- for all other Beam.

Although, looking at your screens of early version where the Long Beam was located where the Charge Beam is, I can suppose that originally there was no Charge Beam and only Long one. Then there are both beams planned. Then they got rid of Long Beam.


As for the item, generally, to make the item fully works, we need:
1. The code for the item itself.
2. The item PLM (that gives you this item after touching).
3. Item PLM graphics.
4. Message when collecting the item.
5. The code in equipment menu to show/select/deselect the item.
6. Graphics for the equipment menu.
7. The code to count item in percentage when finish the game.
8. The code to enable this item using GT code.

Long Beam is having number 6 and traces of 5 from this list.
Spider Ball is having number 8 and traces of 1, 5 and 6.


What also could I add? 2 things.

About

©1993 Nintendo
Version 0.1A

string.

This string is still there. Unused, modified, but still in the ROM.
I can say for sure, they modifing it during the progress of making the game. Until the final version was released. So, the game have this string instead (as I said, unused):

©1994 Nintendo
Version 2.00

It's located at 60626 if you're curious. =)
To get it on screen, use these hex tweaks:

$5A0E3:
03 81 change to 26 86

$5A0E9:
Do the same.

And last one. I clearly remember the teaser of SNES made in 1990's which I saw on TV at that time. There were the short excerpts from a few games. Super Metroid was one of them. And you know what I saw? Samus at Ceres fighting Ridley with Charge Beam.

I can search later for that trailer and give you a link.

I have one idea about it. Like you're starting at Ceres having some items from the start, but then in the end of Ridley fight, you'll lose all of them. Like they did for Prime.

Just imagine, Ridley flies away and then accelerates from the far point towards the screen and... nothing. Just were just pushed. No damage, no item loss. I think, it was the point where Samus could lost her items.


EDIT: Aha! I knew it!
Look at your picture number 17. 5 rectangles in the SUPPLY frame.

[Dessyreqt]

It doesn't actually say that new Tourian is in a deeper location, just that it's more secure. That is, instead of two statues, blocking the way, there are now four. Oh and you can't just freeze an enemy to bypass the statues, you have to tap into deep and mysterious powers (namely the x-ray scope or space/time beam.)

[Crashtour99]

Just to add in a few things:

If you read through my physics table document in the collab thread you'll see that there are unused values for running acceleration in liquids.  In the same document I added a routine that restores functioning to these values, though the feel is kinda strange.  They could probably use some tweaking to get it right.
Also, in the same document the first of the movement momentum tables is truncated by 2 entries, or rather overlaps the following table by 2 entries.  I suspect that at some point there were a few additions, so that first momentum table got moved back but they forgot to adjust the other tables as well.

Also, while doing a bunch of disassembly on the item PLMs I discovered what looked like a broken PLM.  From what was left of it, it looks like it was designed to be placed under an item PLM (covering the item pedestal) and would change the graphic of the pedestal.  If you look in the CRE graphics you'll see 2 item pedestals, one that is lit up and one that looks normal.  I'm pretty sure that it was planned to have the pedestals flash along with the items before they were collected.

Lastly, relating to a spider ball in SM.  If you look at the morph ball gfx in the ROM you'll see what appear to be "squashed" morph ball sprites.  I haven't looked into the animation info regarding these gfx, but it's very possible that they were intended to be used with another morph upgrade of some kind.

[JAM]

Also, while doing a bunch of disassembly on the item PLMs I discovered what looked like a broken PLM.  From what was left of it, it looks like it was designed to be placed under an item PLM (covering the item pedestal) and would change the graphic of the pedestal.  If you look in the CRE graphics you'll see 2 item pedestals, one that is lit up and one that looks normal.  I'm pretty sure that it was planned to have the pedestals flash along with the items before they were collected.

The "highlighted" one is used in original game when a Power Bombs is on a pedestal.

Lastly, relating to a spider ball in SM.  If you look at the morph ball gfx in the ROM you'll see what appear to be "squashed" morph ball sprites.  I haven't looked into the animation info regarding these gfx, but it's very possible that they were intended to be used with another morph upgrade of some kind.

Alright, let's call it "Unknown Ball" then.

I saw these sprites too. It could be feature like a spindash in Sonic 2 (or Boost Ball in Prime). Or an item, allowing to do a spinning jump into ball form and lay a bombs there.

I wish we can make an interview with devs of Super Metroid, like that did the members of Sonic hacking community for Sonic 2.

[CrAzY]

Finished updating the document as well as adding a couple new photos that I stumbled across, as well as the images pointed out by Vismund.

The link in the first post now leads to the updated version.

Fixed up a lot of things, & also went through the hand drawn Super Metroid Developer's Map & marked every area that appears to contain differences.

Also included some more speculation about the the fifth Reserve Tank in the game, & have pretty much concluded that it was originally down near the Morphball (or at least, obtainable before "waking up" Zebes.) After JAM pointed the fifth one out, I discovered that one of the images I included that seemed to contain no differences had one after all. Samus did indeed have an early Reserve Tank because we can see a small energy pickup off of killing the first Space Pirate in the game.

That being said, I scoured the internet for hours using an array of terms that could yield any beta content, but it seems that after this final sweep, not much more is out there. Hope to be proven wrong, again, though! I also searched for all of the Super Metroid commercials/ads to see if I could find Samus with the Charge Beam at Ceres (mentioned by JAM), but no dice.

The only place I see more info coming from is foreign magazines/websites or if anyone managed to capture any footage of it at the 1994 CES where it was shown off (only a couple months before release, but might still have something.)

Anyway, enjoy!

[snibsnib]

I was scouring youtube and I found this. Looks like a metroid in Maridia :). Or maybe its just an early design of a mocktroid.
Skip to 15:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siTeGPMIwpw

There's also a whole bunch of beta footage at 9:55

[CrAzY]

What the hell? Can't believe I missed that. The video has already been linked/documented/screen-shotted in my document above, but I guess I naively assumed that when Super Metroid was done that it was the end of the Super Nintendo "block" in the showcase.

Great catch! Very strange looking level design, & a Metroid in Maridia, very strange. Mocktroid success?

Will screen shot that clip & update the document with sources/info. Totally cool! Thought our glimpse into the 0.1a version of SM had come to an end.

I totally love you for pointing that out. Watch after the Metroid in Maridia. A ripper is in the same room as spore spawn! Wtf! Notice it's location, as it flies right in the path to hit Samus when she is morph balled in the safe areas, would have been a more challenging battle! Also seems that the core of Spore Spawn (his weak spot) disappears when killed.

Also, the the energy symbol changes from the arrow to the underlined point when it shows the Spore Spawn clip. That, mixed with the fact that the location of Samus on the mini-map doesn't match up with the map shown earlier in the video seems to suggest that these are two different builds. Was spore Spawn moved that much? So much care for something all speed runners skip ;]

[snibsnib]

Haha, Glad I could help. I also noticed a ripper in the spawn spore fight a bit further on.

EDIT: Sorry. Didnt read the end of your post

[CrAzY]

&now I finally found some CES 1994 footage. It doesn't show much, but it shows that they were still finalizing enemy placement less than 2 months from release! Will update with that + sources as well, but first I am going to scour for more CES clips, as it appears to have been playable to the public (thought it was a private demo until now!)

[Crashtour99]

I find it funny how closely Grime's repallet of Maridia in PB 0.7 resembles that beta Maridia room with the metroid...

[JAM]

Finished updating the document as well as adding a couple new photos that I stumbled across, as well as the images pointed out by Vismund.

Great. =) Could you please also post the document separately?

As for the 5th Reserve Tank, it may be located in the first Brinstar room. Or there can be another explanation: in the beta, energy balls still appearing even if you r health is full (liek it was in Metroid 1).

I also searched for all of the Super Metroid commercials/ads to see if I could find Samus with the Charge Beam at Ceres (mentioned by JAM), but no dice.

Alright. I'll find that TV show and give you a link later.



I'll add more stuff. Open the ROM using Hex Editor at the very beginning of bank $B4. $1A0000. And you'll see the room ID and its enemy allowed. From final version (not beta), but the IDs could tell about the beta area names.

Example:
$1A0000:
[FF FF] SF1_10 _ [BF D3 : 01 00] [FF D6 : 02 00] [3F D8 : 03 00] [FF FF]
The word $FFFF is separator.
SF1_10 is "room 10 in Surfance area". Now, using your docs and pic I know that SF is surface.

As for other areas:
BL = Brinstar;
NO = Norfair;
NP = Another name for Wrecked Ship. No Problem? =) We could only guess how was it named.
ML = Maridia;
TS = Tourian. Why TS? Tourian Station?
CL = Ceres.
TT = Test [Debug room]

[Hawntah]

NP = Another name for Wrecked Ship. No Problem? =) We could only guess how was it named.

Apparently, nanpasen (難破船) means shipwreck in Japanese. Also, TS for Tourian could be because there is no "tu" sound in Japanese, only "tsu". Similarly, Brinstar, Maridia and Ceres are probably BL, ML and CL instead of BR, MR and CR because they don't have separate L and R sounds, causing much hilarity and confusion when transcribing words into English (shamefur dispray, anyone?).

Of course, I don't actually speak Japanese so I could be completely wrong.

[CrAzY]

Great. =) Could you please also post the document separately?

As for the 5th Reserve Tank, it may be located in the first Brinstar room. Or there can be another explanation: in the beta, energy balls still appearing even if you r health is full (liek it was in Metroid 1).

No problem. Check the first post for the updated package, as well as the document available separately for download or directly to view from this thread.

Also, yeah, by the Reserve Tank being in Crateria, I kind of count the Morph Ball rooms as being in Crateria, even though I know they aren't. Guess I should update that for later.
Also added your speculation to the document (that you might still get energy drops when at full health.)

Alright. I'll find that TV show and give you a link later.

Thank you! Wish you luck in finding it.

& that is pretty interesting stuff about the area names. I love when beta screen shots can clear up mysteries in the retail (surface area.)

Not sure what is the reason for the strange area name abbreviations. . . .
Hawntah's hypothesis seems pretty reasonable, especially the Japanese Wrecked Ship name. As for the others, I am not so sure.

Edit: seems I went too far with certain assumptions about the hexagonal map. Updating yet again & adding a pointless wrecked ship difference as well.

& JAM, what's up with those two weird beams you show off in the first page of your Spazer/Plasma Mix thread? You state they were left over?